Large-sample hydro-meteorological dataset for the Alps

Author: Christopher Schlemper, Jonas Götte, and Manuela Brunner
Owner: Manuela Brunner
Last update: 17.08.2022

This dataset provides daily streamflow data for 827 catchments in the Central Alps for the period 1970-2017. 
In addition, it provides daily hydro-meteorological time series of precipitation, temperature, and snow-water-equivalent. 
The time series are derived from gridded ERA5-Land data for each catchment.
This dataset accompanies the manuscript by Brunner et al. (2023) and is needed to reproduce their results.

Dataset components:

(1) Shapefile of 827 catchment boundaries: DFStaR_catch_boundaries_1970_2017.shp
The shapefile meta data contains information on: 
- catchment ID (ID, used as a reference for the data files in (2) and (3))
- Country
- Region
- Catchment: catchment outlet location
- River
- Area_km2: catchment area in km2
- elevmean: mean catchment elevation in m.a.s.l.
- elevmedian: median catchment elevation in m.a.s.l.
- elevmin: minimum catchment elevation in m.a.s.l.
- elevmax: maximum catchment elevation in m.a.s.l.
- slopemean: mean catchment slope
- CLC1_ArtiS: CORINE-Landcover class 1: Artificial Surfaces (percentage of catchment area [0-1])
- CLC2_AgriA: CORINE-Landcover class 2: Agricultural areas (percentage of catchment area [0-1])
- CLC3_Forest: CORINE-Landcover class 3: Forest and seminatural areas (percentage of catchment area [0-1])
- CLC4_Wetla: CORINE-Landcover class 4: Wetlands (percentage of catchment area [0-1])
- CLC5_Water: CORINE-Landcover class 5: Water bodies (percentage of catchment area [0-1])
- GlacierPer: percentage of glacier cover  derived from the Randolph Glacier Inventory 

(2) Daily observed streamflow time series (folder: streamflow_time_series)
Files are organized by country: Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH), Germany (DE), and France (FR)
Data was provided by the following national agencies:
Switzerland (Federal Office for the Environment, FOEN)
Austria (Austrian Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism)
France (Banque HYDRO)
Regional agencies:
Bavaria (Bayerisches Landesamt für Umwelt)
Baden-Württemberg (Landesanstalt für Umwelt Baden-Württemberg).
File structure (ID_streamflow.txt):
(a) Date (YYYY-MM-DD)
(b) Discharge (m3/s)

(3) Daily hydrometeorological time series derived from gridded reanalysis data (ERA5-Land) for precipitation, temperature, and snow-water-equivalent (folder: ERA5_Land_time_series)
Files are organized by country, region, and variable:
Countries: Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH), Germany (DE), and France (FR)
Regions in Germany: Baden-Württemberg (BW) and Bavaria (BY)
Variables: precipitation (precip, mm/d), temperature (temp, °C), and snow-water-equivalent (swe, mm)
File structure (ERA5_country_variable.txt):
(a) Date (YYYY-MM-DD)
(remaining rows) time series for station indicated in column name

Related publications:
Brunner, M. I., Götte, J., Schlemper, C., & Van Loon, A. F. (2023). Hydrological drought generation processes and severity are changing in the Alps. Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2022GL101776. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101776
Munoz-Sabater, J., Dutra, E., Agust ́ı-Panareda, A., Albergel, C., Arduini, G., Balsamo, G., ... (2021) ERA5-Land: A state-of-the-art global reanalysis dataset for land applications. Earth System Science Data, 13, 4894349–4383.  doi:  10.5194/essd-13-4349-2021